Growing Up
by you're my Star
Summary: [:DP:] 'I used to carry this everywhere with me when I was a little girl. Mother thought I was getting too attached so took it away.' Draco eyed the doll with disdain, 'Heart wrenching.'


**disclaimer:** i really don't feel like doing the whole song and dance over again, but here i go anyway: i. do. not. own. these. characters.

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Growing Up

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"I can't believe I ever liked this stuff in the first place." Pansy muttered. Draco stood in the doorway watching her with a slightly bemused expression as she stood at the foot of her bed with her hands on her hips assessing the objects in front of her. There was a medley of dolls, children's books with their covers playing out different scenes, and various other colorful childhood commodities spilt across the bed's surface.

The items looked horribly out of place in _Pansy's _room, on her gray bedspread. The rainbow of childhood splattered across her quilt was an impossible to miss sore in an otherwise immaculately coordinated and organized room.

Draco took a step in, watching as Pansy stood perfectly stiff, looking tense and frowning, only her eyes moving across the bed, her eyebrows knit together unhappily.

"My mother sent the bloody house elf in to clear out my room of anything deemed unnecessary. As _if _taking her liberties decorating it wasn't enough." Pansy said immediately.

Draco cast a look around the room. Pansy's mother had horrible taste, really. The walls were bland and the furniture so overstuffed and uncomfortable that Draco found himself seated on the floor most of the time. The colorless decorating scheme part of a new idea of Pansy's mother's to evoke feelings of peace within the household, and she seemed to think that she could accomplish her goal by redecorating every room of the house so it strongly resembled a hospital ward.

"It's not like I care about loosing this stuff, really. We're both growing up, Malfoy, and it's been _years _since we've even looked at our childhood toys." Pansy said, a bit unconvincingly, her face still betraying the slightest hint of sadness. "It's just… it's the _principal _of the thing. She's taken control of absolutely everything in my life, _nothing _is up to me anymore. All she's doing is throwing this stuff in the trash-- what a bloody waste!"

After a few moments of silence, Draco spoke, "You're causing quite the uproar over a bunch of junk." He said uncaringly, arching an eyebrow.

"She could at least pass it on to one my little cousins or something…" Pansy mumbled, for the slightest moment a look of dejection washed over her face, "Sometimes I think my mother is more out of her mind than her therapist is." She added.

"We both know that anyone taking advice from that old bat is bound to end up in the same mental state some day." Draco remarked, picturing Pansy's mother's psychiatrist, and then shaking his head slightly, wiping the disturbing image from his mind.

"It's not like I'm going to miss this stuff," Pansy said, seeming a bit lost in her own world, "I don't need it anymore… It's not like it's at all _comforting _to me or something. I'm not a child, and I don't need this stuff clogging my closet, do I?"

Draco had a feeling she was talking more to herself than to him and saw no reason to waste a valuable breath answering the question. He took a seat on the corner of her bed and watched her expectantly.

Pansy rummaged through the items on her bed, and after a moment pulled out a very plain looking doll that was pieced together with different high-priced fabrics. Pansy looked at the doll for a moment, appearing slightly forlorn, an emotion that looked odd on her face to Draco. He'd so rarely seen it there.

Draco's eyes flickered to the object in her hand, he didn't recognize it. It wore a red dress and a smile, it's eyes stitched on wide and innocently. To him it was a trivial objects, and it didn't surprise him that Pansy's silly toy wasn't embedded in his long-term memory.

"What a precious doll, Parkinson," Draco sneered. "Say goodbye now, wouldn't you agree that it's time for you and I to go eat?"

"I used to carry this everywhere with me when I was a little girl." Pansy stated, "Mother thought I was getting too attached so took it away."

Draco eyed the doll with disdain, "Heart wrenching."

"Try to show sympathy."

"If sympathy is what you're looking for, I would recommend wasting your days with someone else. In fact, you'd be better off turning to the doll for sympathy."

Pansy took one last look at the simple doll in her hand and then tossed it back onto the bed, brushing her hands together and then crossing them across her chest determinedly, Draco realized she was making her best effort not to appear dejected. "Well, let's go eat then. My stomach is empty." Pansy said, swiftly turning to leave the room. Draco watched her go before rising from the bed, not bothering to smooth out the wrinkled quilt.

He'd only made it to the foot of the bed before he paused again. His eyes searched and settled on the little doll nestled between an old puzzle and a tacky jewelry box. He remembered the look on Pansy's face as she'd talked about her mother cleansing her room of anything linked to the past; this was just another aspect of her life her parents were controlling. Before he'd made rational sense of his urge he acted upon it, reaching down and snatching the small doll up; it was hardly bigger than his hand.

He knew she'd really wanted to keep it, but had simply been too proud to admit it. It couldn't hurt to salvage this one toy of hers that she might actually --for some reason Draco couldn't begin to fathom-- miss, could it?

"Are you coming?" Pansy called back into the room from down the hallway.

"Yes, Pansy, I'm coming, stop badgering me."

He didn't have time to talk some much needed sense into himself. Draco glared resentfully at the smiling face of the doll one last time, clutching it tightly in his hand as he pictured the look on Pansy's face, before shoving the little shard of childhood into his pocket and following her out.

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**a/n:** i was inspired to write this a couple nights ago when i went obsessive-compulsive on my closet. do review and let me know what you thought, i'd like some sign that you exist! thank you:) 


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